Loeb on the challenges of Dakar and WRX
He’s more relaxed than during his World Rally days, but Sebastien Loeb has two big targets for 2018
Apart from a little more salt-and-pepper in the stubble, Sebastien Loeb hasn’t changed a bit. Behind the contractually placed sunglasses, those blue eyes still seek one thing: coffee; espresso. Short, punchy, powerful – that’s the fresh-roasted Kenyan beans as much as the nine-time world champion. Loeb looks as ready as ever to take on a new challenge. Nineteen years on from his first manufacturer involvement in world motorsport, he’s back for another season-long, factory-backed title shot. Back then it was Citroen and rallying. Now it’s Peugeot and rallycross.
The 43-year-old has been competing in World Rallycross for the past two years with Peugeot Team Hansen, but now everything’s changing. Now Peugeot is really coming to the table.
Peugeot CEO Jean-philippe Imparato outlined the Parisian firm’s intentions in October, confirmed the commitment and added: “Our ambassador Sebastien Loeb will be coming with us in this daring new adventure. The goal of the 2018 season will be to win the title.”
It’s what Loeb wanted. Before the deal was announced, Loeb was frustrated at the semiworks team’s inability to cope with the allconquering alliance of Petter Solberg’s team and Volkswagen Motorsport. Put plain, if Peugeot didn’t sign, Loeb would walk.
Peugeot wasn’t about to make the same mistake its PSA stablemate made two years ago almost to the day, when Loeb was dropped from Citroen’s World Touring Car Championship team. A seething Sebastien had told Autosport he was as surprised as anybody at the decision not to retain him for the expected third season in the WTCC.
“For me,” said Loeb at the time, “it was natural to continue with Citroen. We already spoke about it with [team principal Yves] Matton. But then they changed their mind…
“If they [Citroen] would have asked me to do one or two rallies, then yes, why not? If they ask me now, I don’t think so.”
Loeb’s return to a Citroen World Rally Car at two tests earlier this season signalled a softening in that line. Indeed, there’s much chatter about Loeb competing for the reds from the other side of town again in 2018. Mexico and Corsica are the current favourites for his return.
Loeb smiles, he’s heard all of this before. And anyway, he’s got plenty on his plate to be thinking about for the time being – the Dakar Rally’s looming large again.
“I think it could be the last one [for me],” he says. Certainly, it will be for Peugeot, and Loeb’s unlikely to find another manufacturer so ready to wrap a programme around him.
Next month will be his third attempt at the South American marathon. He’s certainly left his mark on the first two. Setting a pace few could hope to keep up with on both events, he crashed first time out and hit mechanical trouble last year.
Loeb’s not the kind of driver who gets hugely animated about the prospect of a win – that may have something to do with the 78 World Rally victories he’s already tucked under his belt – but you can tell a Dakar victory would mean something special. “I want to win,” he says, “of course I do, it’s why
I’m going, but it’s really tough.”
More tough than he expected? “No,” he says. “I knew it would be difficult. I know in the rhythm of driving I am quite good and usually faster than my team-mates, but then we lose some time in the navigation. Daniel [Elena, co-driver] does well, but last year Stephane Peterhansel’s co-driver [Jean-paul Cottret] has so much experience. Last year he did maybe no mistakes. But then we had our problem when the car stopped for half an hour.”
Loeb’s run in to next month’s Dakar hasn’t exactly been trouble-free. He led on the Silk Way Rally debut for Peugeot’s 3008DKR Maxi, but rolled end over end when he was caught out on a dried river bed in China. In Morocco, October’s final competitive dress rehearsal, Loeb was leading again, only to fall foul of a broken damper.
“So much of Dakar is about experience,” he says, with just a hint of frustration. “Every time you make a mistake, you have this experience and you can take this experience on to the next time – but it takes so long and so much time to get this experience. Some of the guys competing have been here for more than 10 years and they know so much about it.”
Peterhansel is just that man. Nobody knows the Dakar like Loeb’s countryman. Off-road racing is a unique discipline in which patience regularly pays great dividends.
The 13-time Dakar winner can understand Loeb’s frustration. “He is so fast,” says Peterhansel. “We can see, when the road is like the WRC in places like Argentina, he is so fast, we cannot compete with that. But this race is long…”
There’s no fast-tracking here. You serve your time or the Dakar bites you. Time and again.
“We’ve only done six rally raids, which means that we are always going to be lacking in experience compared to the others,” adds Loeb. “But the Peugeot has evolved and myself
“I want to win the Dakar, of course I do, it’s why I’m going, but it’s tough”
and Daniel have made progress as well. We’re better in every way. The Dakar is by nature unpredictable, so we’re giving ourselves every advantage we can to try and win it.”
This not-winning thing is so alien to Loeb. On his full
World Rally Championship debut in a factory Citroen Xsara WRC, he came within 11.4 seconds of beating Gilles Panizzi on the 2001 Sanremo Rally.
A few months later he lost the Monte in the stewards’ room after Citroen illegally changed his tyres. But that summer, he won in Germany. And the year after he won three times and missed the world championship by a single point. And then won the next nine in a row.
For a career winner, not winning must hurt. “No,” he smiles, toying with his espresso cup, pondering another. “It doesn’t hurt me because I enjoy what I am doing. For sure, I prefer it when I win, but it’s a bit different now. I enjoyed the challenge of touring cars and it’s the same with the rallycross. I enjoy what I do. I spend some good weekends fighting with the other guys, but I accept that today I drive because this is my passion.”
Loeb endured something of a baptism of fire last year, when his fellow World RX racers seemed desperate to find a way around – or even over – his Peugeot. Everybody had a point to prove with Loeb. Since then, two things have changed: he’s become (as much as he ever can become) just another face in the paddock; and the organisers have clamped down on driving standards in the series.
“It’s definitely better now,” he says. “Competing in touring cars helped me a little bit with the racing, but rallycross there was much more contact. For sure, in rallying it was easier for me to win; you do your job yourself: you are fastest, you win. You don’t have to fight with the other guy in the same corner and the other guy cannot destroy your race.”
In another world, could Loeb have won nine rallycross titles? “When I started in rallying, rallycross wasn’t at the same level that it is now,” he says. “I don’t know. For the reasons I said, it’s maybe harder to win in rallycross. I think I have the potential to win [the title] in rallycross, but if you lose one second then your race can be finished. Everything is so close to the limit in rallycross. When we were in rallying, if you lose one second because you brake too late for one corner, then OK, you can make this time back later in the stage.”
Rallying remains Loeb’s first love. His recent Rallye du Var outing in his own Peugeot 306 Maxi is testament to that. He was a man completely at one with his surroundings in Saintemaxime. The naturally aspirated front-wheel-drive racer screamed its way along France’s south coast, to the delight of Loeb and the thousands who had turned out to watch.
The odd WRC outing with Citroen next season would be nice and would, no doubt, give him a kick. But these days, the real buzz comes on the line waiting for the start of another RX race.
“The adrenalin on the line is still amazing,” says Loeb. “You have all of these cars going for one corner and the acceleration
is incredible. You don’t get this feeling on a rally – when you go from the line you are alone.”
Most importantly these days, rallycross gets the seal of approval from Loeb junior. His daughter Valentine is a fan of her father’s move from rallying to rallycross.
“I think it’s more exciting for the fans,” says Loeb Sr. “My daughter, for example, she prefers the rallycross because she can be in one place and be with me for part of the day. Then she’s stressed and excited during the racing and she can see some action. For people who have the passion, they enjoy the rally car sliding around on the stage, but for the little girl it’s more exciting for her to see the cars fighting, then one car wins and it’s over.”
One person who’s not getting stressed is Loeb himself. He’s rarely looked so relaxed. Naturally, he wants to win and there’s part of his motorsport process that means it still feels quite alien not to be standing on the top step of the podium every other week. But he’s moved on. Today it’s about the thrill of competing and the buzz of going into corners doorhandle to doorhandle. Yes, there are airports involved for him in a 12-round world championship, but he’s arriving on a Thursday and out of there on a Sunday. With no recce and less testing, the time he’s spending staring at the inside of an aeroplane is much more acceptable.
Loeb’s relaxed demeanour allied to factory-level support from Peugeot will make him a very much more potent threat in World Rallycross next season.
And it could be enough to mark the end of his time away from the world championship winners’ circle.